Tag: Global

London, United Kingdom – Independent digital creative agency AnalogFolk has announced the launch of ‘Mindworks Consulting’, a behavioural transformation consultancy which aims to deliver improved business outcomes through applying behavioural economics to both marketing strategy and organisational design. 

The new consultancy aims to help its clients achieve their business transformation ambitions by embedding behavioural science methodologies at the heart of the business to allow it to be nimble and reactive to changing business and customer needs. 

According to Bill Brock, co-founder and chief client officer at AnalogFolk Group, the founding team of Mindworks has been proving out their methodologies across a number of AFG’s leading clients over the past few years.

“This work has been pivotal for clients such as Dyson, Bayer and HSBC, allowing them to quickly identify business opportunities and help them change direction based on a real-time understanding of customer behaviour. It’s that success that has led to us making it a formal offering by launching MindWorks,” Brock said.

The new Mindworks Consultancy is led by Brad Herholdt as CEO; Michelle Watson, principal behavioural partner, and Mark Barry, principal consulting partner, all who previously worked together as business leaders at AnalogFolk. Bill Brock, AFG’s Founder will work closely with the team in his role as chief client officer, ensuring that MindWorks’ global clients benefit from the services across AFG’s portfolio of brands. 

As part of AFG, MindWorks becomes a partner brand to full-service digital creative agency AnalogFolk, content production company Untold Fable, and automation and tech engineering company With Robots, the latter two of which the group launched last year. 

Operating out of London, the consultancy is leveraging AFG‘s network presence in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia, providing a service to global clients whose briefs seek to deliver new value across the world. 

Herholdt commented, “Speaking to our clients, we know that every day, companies are struggling to keep up with the pace of change and how it influences their business. They are tired of 5-year vision decks that don’t make it further than the slides they are written on. MindWorks is impact focused, creating actionable roadmaps that we launch quickly so that our visions are built on real customer behaviours and organisational dynamics.”

Meanwhile, Chris Ryan, managing director and partner at AnalogFolk, commented, “We often talk about the need to operate at ‘Asian speed’ in this region, driven by the rapidly evolving and unrelenting expectations of Asian consumers in an increasingly digitised and automated world. Brands who continue to take a business-out approach cannot expect to thrive here. The MindWorks team is already changing how our clients operate in this region and we are excited to build on our early success in partnership with them.”

Singapore – Global data and AI company Databricks has recently launched Databricks Lakehouse for Retail, which is a new centralized data and AI platform catered to retailers and consumer goods (CG) customers. Some of its early adapters include Walgreens, Columbia, H&M Group, Reckitt, among others.

With Databricks’ Lakehouse for Retail, data teams are enabled with a centralized data and AI platform that is tailored to help solve the most critical data challenges that retailers, partners, and their suppliers are facing. In addition, it delivers an open, flexible data platform, data collaboration and sharing, and a collection of tools and partners for the retail and consumer goods industries

Designed to jumpstart the analytics process, new Lakehouse for Retail Solution Accelerators offer a blueprint of data analytics and machine learning use cases and best practices to save weeks or months of development time for an organization’s data engineers and data scientists.

Some of the solutions offered include real-time streaming data ingestion, demand forecasting and time-series forecasting, as well as machine learning-powered recommendation engines.

Ali Ghodsi, CEO and co-founder at Databricks, said, “Databricks has always innovated on behalf of our customers and the vision of lakehouse helps solve many of the challenges retail organizations have told us they’re facing. This is an important milestone on our journey to help organizations operate in real-time, deliver more accurate analysis, and leverage all of their customer data to uncover valuable insights. Lakehouse for Retail will empower data-driven collaboration and sharing across businesses and partners in the retail industry.”

London, United Kingdom – Global media and digital marketing communications company dentsu International has announced its new chief operating officer, Nnenna Ilomechina, effective by May 2022. She will be reporting directly to Wendy Clark, global CEO at dentsu International.

Bringing over 20 years of market-leading digital and transformation experience, Ilomechina will focus on the effective execution of the business strategy and transformation programme critical to delivering integrated clients solutions across media, CXM and creative, and the long-term success of the business.

She had moved from Accenture Strategy where she has been managing director and partner, as well as head of communications for media and high tech (CMT) strategy practice for UK & Ireland, since 2016. Her career has also seen strategic leadership roles at Alix Partners and Sapient, which is now Publicis Sapient.

Speaking about her appointment, Ilomechina shared that the company is dynamic and modern organization, and have been truly impressed by the resilience, authenticity and openness of the leaders she has met.

“Wendy has set an ambitious agenda to become the most integrated agency network. I am energized by the opportunity to work together with the exceptional talent within dentsu, across media, CXM and creative to create an environment and operational infrastructure that will enable dentsu to seamlessly offer a truly integrated client experience, making our teams successful and delivering long-term value for dentsu,” she stated.

Meanwhile, Clark shared that she is delighted to welcome Nnenna to their executive team in May, thanking former CCO Neil Gissler for his outstanding contributions to both dentsu and Merkle and wishing him the very best in his retirement.

“Nnenna’s proven capability and rich experience leading transformative outcomes across digital, technology, media, and business services make her the perfect addition to our global executive team. She’s an exceptional leader with the rare combination of business savvy, operational know-how, cultural sensitivity and a deep understanding of people and their motivations. This fusion of capability is critical for dentsu as we move into the final phases of our own transformation,” she explained.

Jakarta, Indonesia – J&T Express, the Indonesian-based express logistics company, has announced its market expansion to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, marking the company’s first presence in the Middle East and making their total served markets to ten.

Currently, J&T Express serves primarily in Asia, namely China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Singapore.

The expansion was first conceptualized during April 2021, where J&T has established its own nationwide distribution network and localised warehousing system in the UAE and Saudi Arabia respectively, covering all local provinces and regions in the two countries. 

In addition, as an integral aspect of its courier service, the UAE and Saudi Arabia versions of the J&T Express mobile application have also been launched simultaneously.

Sean Xiao, head of J&T Express Middle East, said, “We hope that with J&T Express’ efficient and comprehensive delivery network, we can effectively improve the shopping experience of consumers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and contribute to the development of the e-commerce industry in both countries.”

Meanwhile, Steven Fan, CEO at J&T Express, commented, “The expansion to the UAE and Saudi Arabia marks an important step for J&T Express in establishing a global delivery network. In the future, the company will actively explore opportunities in emerging markets as part of its global strategy to connect the world with greater efficiency and bring logistical benefits to all.”

The latest endeavor for J&T Express comes after their recent funding round of US$2.5 in November 2021, and their acquisition of China-based logistics solutions provider BEST Express.

Shanghai, China – Global media agency Wavemaker has launched ‘Intelligence Engine’ (WIE) within its own network, an automation software technology, which primarily aims to free its employees from repetitive yet necessary routines, allowing them to focus more on emotionally and intellectually rewarding work that cannot be handled by pre-programmed software.

Wavemaker said that with WIE can sustain its operations 24/7 without interruption, in turn eliminating human error to help the agency better serve all of its stakeholders. 

The company has been optimizing its business processes and increasing its overall capability since the technology’s first implementation, as automation modules can automate repetitive yet basic marketing tasks such as advertisement and campaign monitoring with impressive accuracy, while also being proficient in handling work that require higher levels of coordination such as invoice generation, email communications and processing.

For Henry Wang, chief product officer at Wavemaker China, they developed the software to help their employees, partners, and clients to release more energy to push boundaries, to transform the work they do, and the future value they provoke.

“With the help of our Intelligence Engine, every passionate Wavemaker comes together more often to strengthen our collaboration and provoke ever more innovative solutions for our clients. Also, we hope this technology can help future-proof our business and support our goal to achieve better sustainability in human resources and finance functions,” Wang stated.

The software enables Wavemaker to channel more individual time and energy to performing creative tasks and generating additional value for both the company as well as its clients – something that is of vital importance for a media agency. The newly released potentials, in turn, creates considerable space for further staff talent development.

Singapore – DoubleVerify, the software company dedicated to digital media measurement, has launched its podcast series titled ‘Authentic Ad Matters’ where they tackle the latest trends in digital advertising. Said podcast series will be hosted by journalist and media expert Steve Hemsley.

Some of the invited organizations for the podcast series include TikTok, PubMatic, ISBA, Advertising Association, Conscious Advertising Network, and Dell. Topics range from fighting against misinformation to the opportunity a post-cookie world presents.

DoubleVerify has already released three podcast episodes as of writing, where they discussed topics including the role of quality in digital media, the implications of the unchanged lockdown in CTV’s boost in a post-pandemic world, and the impact of cookies and data regulation on advertising.

Speaking to MARKETECH APAC, DoubleVerify said that they hope that the podcast episodes will serve as a ‘masterclass’ on how to react to what is happening in the industry right now — and what will happen over the next several months and years to come. 

“We decided to venture into the podcast space as we wanted a medium that is easily accessible to our audience – whether it was time in-between meetings or their commute from home. These podcasts aim to educate everyone about the complex and ever-evolving world of digital advertising by building their knowledge and understanding through fascinating insights from some of the most respected experts in the industry,” DoubleVerify told MARKETECH APAC.

Meanwhile, Nick Reid, RVP for Northern Europe at DoubleVerify shared to MARKETECH APAC, “Advertisers need to be on the ball when it comes to how the industry is evolving and how changes affect their brands, consumers and businesses. The podcast shines a light on the biggest issues, challenges and trends important to industry pros today, in a way that is easy and convenient to access.”

Aside from being available on their site, the podcast is also available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Jollibee, the top local fast-food chain in the Philippines, which is continually making a name worldwide with its growing global presence, unveils in May of 2021 its first-ever global campaign. Amid numerous advertising campaigns launched this year, it’s ‘A Message From The Future’ that comes out as our Marketing Campaign of The Year. 

In a moving and tear-jerker three-minute film, Jollibee views the pandemic from the future – as a ‘survival story’ told to the new generation, one that is overcome through the power of family and sticking together. 

Through Jollibee’s strong delivery of content in the past years, it has moved from merely being a fast-food brand to now a platform that brings human stories to audiences, packaged in the most inspiring and touching narratives.

Here’s Francis Flores, JFC Philippines’ regional marketing head and Jollibee Philippines’ marketing head, who lets us in on the conceptualization process of the campaign – sharing on the inspiration and the goal of the film; and once and for all, revealing what the brand considers the crucial elements in serving a successful reel that resonates.

Creative Direction 

What inspired the storyline of the campaign?

Jollibee as a brand has always been about the joy of family. This has always been our main inspiration and guiding principle for all our Brand Love Campaigns whether for short films or brand thematic ads.

When the pandemic broke out, everyone was unprepared and had to face an uncomfortable reality. During this time, it was very difficult to convey messages of joy because fear and anxiety were the general sentiments of everyone, but we believed that there was a silver lining amid all this.

We were determined to encourage and uplift everyone by conveying an undisputed truth that even the worst situations cannot put down – the priceless joy that we get from being with our families. Despite the challenges and unfortunate effects that COVID-19 has brought, there is one positive thing that came with it, which is being able to spend more time with our families. From physically spending every waking hour together in lockdown to long video calls across continents, our family was what got us through.

We wanted this campaign to acknowledge the grim reality of the pandemic but still give a positive message of hope. It’s all about appreciating these moments and finding the ultimate joy with family. Our families have been a comforting factor for most of us in these tough times and we wanted everyone to be grateful for that. It was the year of the pandemic, but it was also the year of the family.

What elements does Jollibee’s creative team consider to make an ideal Jollibee campaign?

It all starts with a powerful and universal truth, and for this campaign – we are spending more time with our families now, it has never happened before and may never happen again. And coming from this powerful truth, we wanted to surface the positive things that we can be grateful for even at the height of the pandemic.

a. The rare opportunity to spend more time and grow closer with our family because of the lockdown/quarantine.

b. The realization that anything can happen anytime, so we must never take anything for granted.

c. Our greatest source of joy lies in the ones that matter the most – our families.

Another important aspect is our collaboration with our partner agencies. We’re blessed to be working with several world-class creative agencies and teams that work with us in bringing our brief and vision to life. And during the whole campaign process, we made sure that we worked in close collaboration with our partner agency – from crafting the brief, ideation, storylines until actual production.

It is also critical to clearly define the message we want to convey and who our audience is. Given the widespread effect of the pandemic, we aimed to reach every Filipino family across the globe and not just in the Philippines. To make this possible, we chose to work with a global team to package the creative message in the most universal way possible, but consciously kept it rooted in genuine Filipino values. The campaign was brought to life with the help of BBH (Bartle Bogle Hegarty), a Singapore-based creative agency, and director Law Chen, an American Born Chinese who is a multi-awarded film and advertising director. Armed with a global perspective, a powerful truth, and an inspiring universal message, we were determined to create a film that not only reflects the heart of the Jollibee brand, but also uplifts the human spirit.

Lastly, we made sure that we provided sufficient media, digital and PR support for our campaigns. We didn’t just focus on launching digital videos and ads, we applied a holistic approach for every campaign. We collaborated with our media, digital, and PR agencies to cover all relevant touchpoints and to maximize the reach and effectiveness of our campaigns. Specific to this campaign, we rolled out various initiatives in social media platforms, tapped media partners, and utilized influencers.

We also made it part of a bigger campaign for the month of May where we celebrated the joy of family, notwithstanding the challenges we were all faced during the pandemic. We launched the Family Thanksgiving month last May 1, and we came out with our Kwentong Jollibee Mother’s Day special a week after which espouses gratitude for your loved ones and the joy of family messaging.

Jollibee has been known to roll out emotional-driven films; why do you think it is important for a brand like Jollibee to communicate its brand message through film?

For over 40 years, Jollibee is a brand that is deeply rooted in Filipino culture and is known for bringing joy to families. It has been part of the lives of Filipino families – from simple bonding moments to celebrating major milestones. And it’s not just in the food that we provide, but in the actual experience and joy that people have with our brand. 

It has always been our mission to bring joy to everyone and producing video content has allowed us to continue effectively conveying our message to our target audience. As the world becomes more digital, with information and content made readily available on various platforms, we’re maximizing the use of videos and short films to continue spreading joy through meaningful but free content that resonates with our target audience.

Viewer perception

What has been the feedback of the audience since releasing this first-ever global campaign? 

As of this writing, the film has garnered over 24 million views on YouTube and Facebook combined since we launched it this year in May 2021. It is always great to see several comments and mentions on social media on how they were able to relate to the film and how it has prompted them to actually show and express their appreciation and love for their family members. 

Since this is Jollibee’s first global brand love campaign, it is also overwhelming to see a lot of positive feedback from the international media and advertising industry. We are also humbled and honored to be featured and picked up by global publications such as Ad Age, Ads of the World, and being among the Top 5 in Ad Forum’s best ads of the week worldwide.

What do you think the brand values ‘A Message from the Future’ convey to its viewers?

It’s about giving people a different perspective on the pandemic; to look at it from a more positive and hopeful light. While it’s undeniable that we are faced with a lot of challenges and hardships because of the pandemic, we want to highlight the importance of having our family by our side. So that when we look back, we won’t only relive the difficulties we have experienced, but rather we’ll remember more how our family was our source of strength, hope, and joy.

We know it’s easy to take things for granted, so we want to remind people to appreciate the time we have with our family and be thankful for even the little things that our family does for us. And like what was said in the video, we’ve all gone through a rough time during the pandemic, but it is our family’s love which saved us. So, no matter how sad this period of our life was, because of our family, we still found joy.

Credits:
Agency: BBH Singapore
Chief Creative Officer: Sascha Kuntze
Creative Directors: Mae Ong & Gaston Soto
Creative Team: Sandra Eichner, Charlene Chua, Dawn Abegail, Shervin Low
Business Director: Ross Henderson
Account Director: Victoria Fernandez
Account Managers: Isabel Ong, Daphne Tan
Chief Strategic Officer: Jacob Wright
Senior Strategist: Zoe Chen
Agency Producer: Wendi Chong
Production Company: Stink Films Shanghai
Director: Lawrence Chen
Film Out: Metropolis Post
Audio House: Twenty Below Music, 750mph, Fuse
Client: Jollibee
JFC Philippines Country/Regional Marketing Head and Jollibee Philippines Marketing Head: Francis Flores
Assistant Vice President and Head of Brand PR, Engagement and Digital Marketing: Arline Adeva

Senior Brand PR and Communications Manager: Dennis Reyes
Brand Engagement Manager: Beatriz Cruz
Social Media & Digital Content Officer: Jean Vittorio Sabado

This recognition is based on the results of Google Analytics on the most-read stories of 2021 with editorial validation on the significance of a leader’s contribution, campaigns results, and overall impact.

Singapore – Tiger Beer, one of the well-known premium beer brands in Asia, has launched its first campaign for the year, featuring football icon Son Heung-Min. In it, the South Korean-bord football player invites viewers to chase the boldest of their ambitions this year, which falls under the Year of the Tiger.

The ad, titled ‘The Year of Your Tiger’, features a montage of people saying ‘this is my year’, implying the inspiration they got from Son, who notes that the Year of the Tiger is inspiring him to target his boldest ambition yet – to win a major trophy for his country. In addition, the campaign’s message notes that through dreaming big and never giving up in the face of adversity, Son overcame challenges with courage and determination.

Speaking about the campaign, Son said that he is delighted to partner with Tiger Beer in this movement to inspire people everywhere to own this year by embodying the spirit of the Tiger.

“Tigers are strong in the face of adversity and never back down from a challenge, they’re always bold and determined. I’ve always tried to have the courage to never give up on my dreams – even in the most difficult times. The Year of the Tiger is the perfect opportunity for all of us to dream big and focus on uncaging our true selves,” he stated.

The campaign was created by Publicis One Team Tiger in Singapore and is directed by The Sweet Shop’s Fausto Becatti. The campaign will roll out in all Tiger markets starting with Asia, Oceania and Brazil. In addition, it will kick off a year-long creative platform led by Son where over the next 12 months, Son and a cast of influential voices across Asia Pacific will share personal stories about dreaming big and how they intend to make the Year of the Tiger their own year. 

In regards to the campaign direction, Sean O’Donnell, global brand director at Tiger Beer explained that Tiger Beer was born from defying the odds with a bold and courageous spirit. He added that Son is a global icon who perfectly embodies this spirit of Tiger Beer – he is courageous, confident and unstoppable.

“We believe that we are all born with a Tiger inside us – a version of ourselves that knows no limits to what is possible – but few of us are able to uncage it. We are delighted to be working with Son to inspire people everywhere to use the Year of the Tiger as the catalyst to realize their true selves,” O’Donnell said.

Meanwhile, Melissa Teoh, global marketing manager for communications and digital at Tiger Beer, commented, “Tiger Beer’s brand DNA is all about inspiring people to dream big and pursue their own path, just as Son has done. In the Year of the Tiger, we plan to go beyond simply inspiring people to pursue their passions but will also empower people to do so. We’re excited to start rolling out these programs over the coming months.”

New York, USA – Fiverr, the global marketplace for freelancers has launched a new mobile experience for its mobile application focused on visual discovery and ideation. The new experience, called Inspire, is based on allowing customers to interact with the content on the platform by ‘liking’ it in their feed, and adding it to a mood board or list within the app for later reference.

Content within the Inspire feed is carefully curated based on customers’ recent searches and purchases on the platform, in order to create a highly personalized, one-of-a-kind experience where they are able to draw inspiration for current or future projects.

‘Inspire’ is designed to help customers discover the incredible talent that is available to them through Fiverr. In addition, it also serves as a means to discover the array of services and capabilities that can be beneficial to their business or project needs.

Speaking about the new mobile experience, Liron Markus, VP of product at Fiverr said, “Inspire is meant to be a place where this work can be celebrated, brought to life, and most of all, help visualize the endless possibilities and opportunities available on Fiverr. We are excited to see what kind of inspiration and ideas come from this new experience and to continue commemorating and recognizing the hard work of talented freelancers everywhere.”

‘Inspire’ is based on features of authentic output from freelancers, visual discovery on their feed, personalized feed, engagement and interaction, as well as app exploration.

To experience the new mobile experience, users would need to download the updated Fiverr app version on Google Play and iTunes.

Singapore – The short video sharing platform TikTok continues to rise in popularity globally, with the app being the most-downloaded app across Google Play and iTunes globally on Christmas day, the latest data from mobile data and analytics company App Annie.

Social media platforms Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp–all owned by the recently rebranded tech giant Meta–ranked second to fourth. Meanwhile, social messaging platforms Snapchat and Facebook Messenger ranked fifth and sixth respectively.

Encrypted messaging platform Telegram ranked seventh, highlighting continued consumer patronage of encrypted messaging services along with strong network effects from a growing user base.

Singapore-grown Shopee ranked eighth, the highest-ranking shopping app worldwide, driven by strong uptake in India, LATAM, and Southeast Asia. Spotify ranked ninth globally for downloads. The music streaming app likely received a boost in demand from its end-of-year ‘wrapped’ campaign that has been widely shared on social media.

Lastly, video editing platform Capcut ranked tenth in the most-downloaded apps globally.

In terms of games, ‘Brain Story: Tricky Puzzle’ by Onesoft ranked first following a version released on Dec 21, 2021. ‘Poppy Rope Game’, an open-world action game by Zego Studio ranked second and ‘Rocket League Sideswipe’ by Psyonix (Epic Games) ranked third — a race car soccer game popularized on PC and console, this is the latest example of a gaming title successfully migrating to mobile.

Meanwhile, streaming platforms YouTube, Disney+, and HBO Max all ranked in the top 5 as demand for streaming exclusive content remained. In the case of YouTube, consumers preferred to subscribe to remove ads. It is also noted that digital collectibles app VeVe ranked ninth by spend — an indication of the demand for NFTs.

In terms of games, ROBLOX saw the greatest consumer spend as gamers worldwide spent Christmas day building in the metaverse and upgrading avatar skins and other in-game consumables. Free Fire ranked third for consumer spend — further evidence of online multiplayer gaming driving deep engagement and cross-device play.